Texas and Geography (with a capital G)

So we went to Texas for April vacation. Mom and Polly have a house in Port O'Connor and I haven't been for 5 years. Only Kai has ever been there, which is shameful. The kids had a wonderful time fishing, wading waaaaaaay out in Matagordo Bay (which is 13 feet deep at it's deepest point), visiting with the Texas family, riding bikes and generally enjoying the warm humid weather. Below are some pictures...

So, that was fun.

My darling sister chose to visit family in France during this holiday, which at first made me jealous because I love France like I love, well, LIFE. However, there was a wee volcanic eruption that week and her travel plans got a teensy bit messed up. It took her 4 days to get to the South of France.....from Rome. Italy. As in, right next door. They got from the States to Rome fine, but then it all unravelled. Obviously the trains were all very crowded, but that wasn't helped by the fact that the regional trains in France, and this should surprise NO ONE who has spent any time there, were on, you guessed it, STRIKE! Yes, the strike, that most beloved of French pastimes. When I was living ion Paris there was one every week, from air traffic controllers to nurses to the metro drivers (that one was a bit of a bummer but I was 18 and able bodied so I wasn't too affected.)

Anyway, My sister and nephew had a ridiculous journey in which they were offered a flight to Marseilles via Algeria. And how was she supposed to get to Algeria? By boat? Thanks, but we'll try a different route, like maybe over the Alps by elephant! They wound up sneaking onto the TGV and sharing a compartment with some ladies of a certain age who also snuck on. The conductor didn't check tickets, I think they were probably feeling bad for people at that point. Anyway, they got to our relatives' safely, but there was still the pesky question of how to get home.

When they were trying to rebook those flights, along with tens of thousands of other people, the guy at American Express told her he could get her on a plane out of Glasgow. Silence. "But we're in the south of France." To which he replies, "Can't you just take a train to Glasgow?" Really? REALLY??

OK, I am about to make disparaging remarks about Americans and their willful lack of knowledge of geography. Prepare yourselves. What the hell is going on here? It seems to me that I have been confronted by this kind of idiocy far more frequently than I ought to be. I love Americans. We are generally a very warm, open and cheerful lot. We have, as a people, an excellent sense of humor and tend to abide by the rules of fair play and decency. (Please note that I am talking about the American PEOPLE, not the government. Most emphatically not the government. Even with my guy in the White House.) However, there seems to almost be a kind of pride people take in their own cluelessness, as if it were cool to be ignorant. Please believe me, IT IS NOT COOL! (Neither is typing in caps, but I can't help it tonight.)

Case in point. The Burlington Airport at, like, 4am. Zach and I and our THREE small children ages 6, 5 and almost 2 have been bumped from the first flight that is to get us to the Bahamas. They let us go all the way through security before they let us know that, even though the bitch, I mean woman, at the check in counter was the one who bumped us. Anyway. I am standing there trying to get us on some flight to anywhere that can get us to Nassau so we can catch the little plane to the Out Islands. She tells us we can leave in two days or (and she says this with a completely straight face,) "you can drive to Charlotte and catch your connection to Nassau there." I stare at her for a minute. She repeats it. "Charlotte, North Carolina?" I say with an emphasis that I hope conveys the distance we are talking about. She says yes, that is the one and that none of the flights out of there are full. I say "Yes, they may not be full, but they are also leaving out of North Carolina!" Again, please note the emphasis because I assure you, she did not. She finally looks at me and says "What? Is that far?" I blink. "About 18 hours." At which point she says, "Well jeez, I don't know where Charlotte is." At which point I had to pretend that there was something very exciting happening in my carry-on.

She worked at an AIRLINE. One whose hub was in the very airport we were talking about.

People, get maps, hang them on walls. Study them. Bathrooms make excellent places for maps and atlases. I mean, who doesn't want a little reading material in the WC.

I get that there will be places that people don't know about. I didn't expect everyone I told about Noah's adoption to know where Kyrgyzstan is (although given the sheer number of military service men and women who have gone through there over the last 8 years, you would think more people would,) but to not understand that Glasgow, Scotland cannot be reached from Uzes, France in less than 24 hours without involving air travel is frankly a bit pathetic. Especially if you are a TRAVEL AGENT!!! And don't get me started on little miss sunshine who was oddly proud of not knowing that North Carolina and Vermont aren't really convenient driving distance apart.

There's more. When living in New Mexico, I was asked what it was like to be from Canada. I had to explain that Vermont was indeed a state. One of the early ones too! When I first applied to school in Santa Fe, someone in Vermont asked me why I wanted to study out of the country. People PLEASE! I don't have time for this kind of crap. I have definite weak points in knowledge of things too, I get it, you can't know everything, but come ON.

OK, rant over. I am just going to start buying atlases and handing them out randomly to people who look lost or say stupid shit from now on. Maybe Mapquest is to blame for this. Maybe people have just gotten lazy. Whatever, it's a damn, and annoying, shame.

I have an opinion

I thought that title would amuse those of you who know me. I'll give you a moment to pick yourselves up off the floor. All better? Good.

I've been thinking a lot about the woman, Torry Hansen, who sent the little boy Artyem Saviliev, back to Russia with, basically, a note pinned to his coat.

The first thing I thought when I read this was, "Did she think she had adopted Paddington Bear?" You know, the story of the stuffed bear who is found at Victoria Station with a note pinned to him asking someone to look after him. He had come from "darkest Peru."

Here's the thing, I have absolutely no doubt that this child was hard, maybe even impossible for her to parent. I am sure there were rages and tantrums and violence and tears the likes of which she had never conceived of. I have heard stories of parents waking up in the night, their child standing in their bedroom door staring at them with pure hatred on his face. I have heard of manipulations, lies told to social workers to get parents in trouble, threats to burn down houses with younger siblings inside. This stuff is real. Maybe it happened to her, I don't know. I still think she is an ass.

Here's another thing: I have no doubt that the orphanage misled her about his mental state and the health. When I read that part of her letter I thought, "Well, DUH!" Of course they lied. They have a lot of reasons to cover that stuff up but also, they probably didn't know the kid that well. That is one of the major issues with orphanages. There are too many kids, not enough caretakers and the ones who are there are exhausted, jaded and often, frankly, over it. How would they know what this kid is really like? They have 20 others to take care of. That doesn't exactly leave a lot of time to get into a meaningful relationship with a child. They probably lied to her and simply didn't know what else to tell her about him. Get him out, one fewer kid to take care of, hopefully he has a wonderful life and gets everything he ever dreamed of. Dasvidanya. Because I do believe they genuinely WANT these kids to go to good homes, they just can't provide one themselves. (Spare me the e-mails about how they are doing the best they can with what they have. Maybe they are and maybe they are not. I know of quite a few baby-house directors on the take. The point is, even the best orphanage is not a home, they cannot provide what a home can provide.)

Hansen's adoption agency WACAP, who, for the record, have an excellent reputation, said they followed up with her shortly after she returned home and she was so thrilled with Artyem she wanted to start the process immediately for number 2. Ah, the honeymoon phase. This can last anywhere from 1 week to several months or longer. It's fabulous, usually followed up by Post Adoption Depression on the parents' part, (an actual diagnosis, just ask Melissa Faye Greene, or my shrink,) and rage, depression or a lovely combo of the two on the child's part. Even my kids exhibited this to some degree and they had fairly seamless transitions. With babies and toddlers this rage and grief will manifest itself as tantrums that are often mislabeled "teething" or "colic" or "terrible two's." Try "I-don't know who the hell you people are and my whole life was changed without my consent and your food is weird and you smell bad!" For older kids, the reactions can be, obviously, more intense.

Anyway, when supermom #99 there asked for another child, WACAP, wisely, told her that she should just focus on the child she has for now. She had only just got home. Jesus lady, chill! (OK I'm editorializing, but they did tell her to wait.) She turned to another agency and is currently in process for the Republic of Georgia, although one fervently hopes her agency has since cut her loose. Like I said, she was in the honeymoon phase. Think about how you behave when you are first in a romantic relationship. You are on your best behavior. You chew with your mouth closed, you don't fart in front of your potential love, you always let them have the last piece of cake. And these are people you just want to sleep with, not spend a lifetime with, first wiping their butts and then paying for their every whim from piano lessons to circus camp. When my father was splitting from one of his long series of partners he told my sister that she had changed. "She used to make the bed, for crying out loud." To which my sister rolled her eyes and said "Daaaad! Everybody makes the bed in the beginning." Translate that behavior to a kid who has never been in a relationship of any kind, and duh, there are going to be issues, possibly big ones. I'll bet the mom was on her best behavior too. You know, being super mom, trying to be the kind of mom walking around in soft, rosy light the likes of which one sees on a Lifetime movie about adoption. The kind of light they always give Annette Benning in romantic comedies. Happy Ending light. Which brings me to who I blame for all of this.

I blame all of us. Every single one of us who has said, or even thought, this romantic crap about "love being enough." It's not. It simply is not enough. Not when you are talking about children who have lived through God knows what horrors. Not when there may have been alcohol abuse starting in-utero, neglect from birth and not enough food at every point from the child's first breath. It drives me CRAZY when people talk about "love at first sight." I am so sick of TV movies and for that fact even movies like the Blindside that depict what are for the majority of the world, unrealistic adoption scenarios. The Blindside was a real story, yes, but those stories are the exception, not the rule, and while they are absolutely to be celebrated, Americans have a way of going "awwwwwww" and reaching for the phone to call their local adoption agency, armed with no more information than, "I want to rescue someone too!"

Listen, I thought I felt love when I first saw Kai's picture on my e-mail, but if I'm honest, really honest, it was hormones mixed with impatience to be a mom, topped off with a healthy dose of greed. I wanted THAT baby. I couldn't believe someone would give me such a beautiful child, and let's face it, babies are easy to feel gaga about. They have to be, they are so much work that some days it is their cuteness alone that keeps them from going in the stockpot. The love came later. It helped that I was wildly attracted to this child, that he had a sunny, sweet and open nature, all of which sped the process along. But I believe love comes from sharing experiences. Feeling protective and wanting to care for someone is not the same thing as loving them. I was more honest with the next two kids. I saw Grace and thought "Cute, looks healthy enough and I know that my capacity to love includes people I have never met with snot running out of their noses. I WILL fall in love with this person if we have enough time together. Sign me up." Zach, who loved Kai very quickly, was like "Sure, whatever, it's a baby, let's go." BUT, it took him a long time to feel it with Grace. We had quite a lot of talks about it, and one of the things I love about him is that he was honest and open and admitted he didn't love her yet, even months after we came home. She, frankly, didn't think that highly of him either, which could explain it. It's hard to love someone who doesn't love you back, unless you are a masochist. So I suggested he "act as if" he were in love with her the way he was with Kai, and I swear to God, she started opening up to him within days. That was it, they were off to the races and now she is a total, and I mean TOTAL daddy's girl. God help me. When Noah's picture popped up, Zach said, without skipping a beat "There he is!" I kept looking at the picture thinking "there WHO is?" He looked like an undercooked worm with white drool coming out of his mouth. He was about 3.5lbs in the picture (he was 6 weeks premature) and 2 weeks old. But we had both learned that you don't have to feel anything looking at a picture. We just needed to arm ourselves with resources, information, and go over and meet the child.

I find it hard to believe that tTorry and Artyem ever had the chance to fall in love. When would that have happened? She didn't even give it 6 months, and the trouble clearly started before that milestone. Why, oh WHY didn't she ask for help? Did she think she had failed because she didn't love this kid? Because she probably downright hated him at times? Did she think she was a horrible person because she couldn't be the balm to his wounds? Wounds that may have been so deep they make the Mariana Trench look like a pothole?Was she horrified to find herself afraid of a 7 year old? She's not alone in feeling like that about a kid. Other parents have been there.

I have a sort relative (she's married to my mom's partner's nephew...you know what? My family tree is a whole other post.) Anyway, these are the nicest people you could EVER meet (and this story is a mild one of bonding issues, not Reactive Attachment Disorder, but still interesting.) They had a son, had trouble getting pregnant, decided to adopt and on the way to Russia, she found out she was pregnant. Her husband went to pick up the little girl and she attached herself to him first. In fact, mother and daughter were SO not getting along that mother asked father if they could return the girl. To which father gently said, "Dear, we are not returning our daughter, just like we are not returning our sons." And mother went to cry in the corner. My cousin (I'm calling her that, it's easier) is so funny and open and honest about this and when she gets to the part of when she knew that the girl was hers, there is not a dry eye anywhere. How the girl had hurt herself and they were in the ER and she heard the girl down the hall crying for mama and how she sprinted down the hall to kill whoever was causing her daughter pain. It was her "aha" moment. They have an incredibly close and open relationship. The girl is amazing, the parents are awesome, if my kids turn out half as nice as theirs (they have 3 boys in addition to the girl), I will consider myself a success as a parent.

My point is, these are the kinds of people who would have been delighted to talk to a parent who was suffering from a lack of bond with a child, who would have encouraged her to seek help for his Reactive Attachment Disorder (if that's what he had), who would have been a kind, listening presence. But she turned to no one, except her mother, the one who actually put the child on the plane.

It just KILLS me because Hansen lives a few hours from one of the best Pediatric Adoption clinics in the country. WACAP could have helped her find all the counselling available in Tennessee. She could have been put in touch with countless other families who have shared her pain, are still living with it, or are through to the other side. And if it still didn't work out, they could have helped her find the boy another family. Because adoption disruption is a part of life. One that NOBODY wants to talk about because the rest of us are all too busy screaming "LOVE CONQUERS ALL!" from the mountain tops, meanwhile totally ignoring people, both child and adult, who are truly suffering because they have learned the hard way that sometimes it simply does not.

So, basically, I do not blame this woman for not being able to do it. I know too many really good people who can not parent certain children. What I blame her for is abandoning the child in a seriously heartless way, without having tried ANYTHING else first. And I blame her for not arming herself with information before she went into the adoption. For not having resources lined up to help the child. For going into this without being AT ALL prepared. And lastly, I blame the media and all of us for promoting the myth of love fixing everything. It works well on the silver screen, but they have an editing room, they get to edit out the pain. The rest of us, not so much.

New computer

So shortly after I last posted, our PC died. We, finally, went out yesterday and bought an iMac and dear GOD this thing is a piece of awesome machinery. So quiet, so slick, so chic. So freaking HUGE! A 27 inch screen, people.

So now I will be able to upload pictures and write again. Fortunately, oh so fortunately, when the other one died, we didn't lose any information off the hard-drive. The motherboard died, but did not take our pictures and other work with it.

So bear with me, I will be back. Especially as I now have such a fun toy to write with.